Archive for September, 2006

***John Rocker has some t-shirts to sell. He is uniting the country under the banner of a common language. You got a problem with that, Paco? Rocker got a raw deal after that unfortunate Sports Illustrated interview. His career was essentially over as soon as the magazine hit the streets. Make it up to him, and buy a shirt.

***The Tennessean is confusing me. How can they copyright mug shots (click on the photos in the story) that are taken by local law enforcement and paid for by the citizenry? Seriously, is there a lawyer in the house who can explain it to me? They must be concerned that us millionaire bloggers will siphon off their revenue stream by swiping online content.

Speaking of the content of the article, would it have been too hard to actually go speak with the young Marine while he is in jail? I know it is easier just to print excerpts of his letter to the judge. But, it might have shown, I don’t know, an interest in reporting more than what is just spoon-fed to you.

On the topic of the article, perhaps they should change the name of the place to something other than “Youth Ranch”. It makes it sound like a place you go to ride, uh, youths.

One more blast at the daily. Why is it that the Wall Street Journal has to drive 937 miles to score a story on the lavish lifestyle of highly paid hopheads in academia? Last time I checked, it was well within the realm of possibility to walk from 1100 Broadway to Vanderbilt University in under an hour. Nothing like a big paper with national circulation swooping in and sniffing out some real news right under your nose. The Gannett Fishwrap further cemented their reputation as the lapdog of Vandyland by printing this idiotic story with an equally idiotic headline, “Vandy Shrugs off Gee Revelations“.

Really? So no one who would have to face the wrath of Gee-Money is willing to spout off about it. What a shocker. What about the rest of the city that you purportedly cover? Any reaction there? I know you couldn’t spare Woodtard and Bernstain from their massive investigation of how much going to prison must suck, but if you asked anyone in any of the bars within a one mile radius of your office, or even if you asked the chicks working the SuperCuts out on Charlotte, EVERYBODY in town has an opinion about this. It is all anyone talked about yesterday and they are still talking today. The fucking hobo standing by at the interstate exit asked me what I thought about Connie gettin’ high instead of asking for change.

Apparently, it is the time of year to put bulk items out by the street for pick up. They probably sent out flyers or something. I figured it out when all of my neighbors had big piles of junk, which are usually for sale at their bi-weekly yard sales, out by the mailbox.

If I had paid more attention, I might have been able to figure out more junk to drag to the end of the driveway. All I could come up with on the spot was the Bastard gas grill. This grill, which has earned the name Bastard for good reason, has been an albatross since I bought it.

The Bastard has never fired up properly. It always involved a lot of jiggering around with the valve in order to get the gas flowing properly. Sometimes it would fire right up. Mostly, it required the jiggering. The worst times were when I would be stumbling drunk with a lit Marlboro hanging from my lower lip trying to get the Bastard lit. Even my tough guy pals would go running into the house like a little girl who has just seen a spider when that would happen.

Last time I tried to fire it up, it made a sound like it was pumping gas everywhere except the grill. Come to find out when I went looking for a replacement valve, the manufacturer had issued a recall for the grills. Turns out the regulator valve was made out of toothpicks and dog slobber. With that info, and the realization that a faulty gas grill with after market replacement parts might void my thus far impeccable record of not getting blowed up yet, helped me realize that the Bastard was destined for the junk heap.

So, I hauled it out to the street. Within an hour it was gone. All of my neighbors still had mounds of junk in their yards. Turns out that bottom-feeding hillbillies troll the neighborhoods when the bulk waste is put out. I’ve seen three different ones skulking around looking for junk like it is the loading dock of the Salvation Army store on a Sunday night. That’s another hick magnet. Every Sunday night, random jackasses clean out their homes of useless stuff and dump it in the rear parking lot of the Salvation Army store on Charlotte. All the while, people who are reminiscent of Jawas rummage through all the junk looking for that shitty exercise bike and pee stained rug that will really tie the room together. It is like a secret after dark swap meet. Especially when the people who dump their stuff leave with someone else’s trash.

So, one of these goobers thinks he’s got him a new gas grill. Watch your local news this week for some poor dope that blows himself up in West Nashville from a bad gas grill. That would be the Bastard.

And as always with the stuff I put at the end of the driveway, ALL SALES ARE FINAL.

When a guy comes up to you outside of a grocery store, and lays some tale of woe on you about how he came down here to the VA hospital from East Pigshit, Kentucky and they done towed his car/ran out of gas/needs bus fare, and "he ain’t got no way to get no money, if you could spare a couple of dollars…", what do you do? Do you give him a dollar or some spare change you have, or do you tell him get lost?

For me, it depends on how good the story is. If it is a run of the mill "out of gas" story, forget it. If it is the "just got out of jail" routine, hell no. But, if they really put some craftsmanship into painting the word picture of their imaginary crisis, I’ll cough up some dough.

This email, like the ones you get every day from some Third World doofus claiming you and your bank account can help him get the noble white farmer’s inheritance/Captain Kidd’s treasure/Hitler’s gold, before the dirty authorities get their thievin’ mitts on it. The difference is this one shows a little finesse. Rather than being from a Third World doofus, it is from one of our brave soldiers fighting for our freedoms.

I present it to you (with notes in boldface!) for your reading pleasure.

Dear Sir,My name is, Capt Ernest Taylor (I knew that dude! He was a dick.) representing a faction of American soldiers, serving in the military of the 1st Armoured Division in Iraq(an actual unit), we came across your e-mail address(s) in the process of research and enquiry into an immense military global data base. (Damn you NSA!)I believe you are familiar with the war situation in Iraq? (Wait, there’s a war in Iraq?) Besides the killings, a lot of activities do occur; sales of antiques (That sounds about right. When we aren’t shooting Iraqis, we often like to haggle with the surviving family members about selling their Stickley china cabinets and Queen Anne footstools), discovery of stocked foreign cash and lots more. In April 2003, Staff Sergeant Kenneth Buff of the United States Army found US$160 million hidden by fleeing members of the Baath Party led by former dictator Saddam Hussein of Iraq. (This sentence is surprisingly factual.)Later, a search of the area revealed more hidden loot, total US$650 million. All of this was turned to the USA Administration in Iraq. Recently, during a routine archaeological excavation of the area east of Tigris River, I and my three other colleagues discovered 1 box of the similar kind found by US Army! After careful examination we discovered that it is $100 US Dollars bills total USD 16Million which we concealed and packaged in one box hidden safely and later send to Europe by a special Courier Service. (Oh, right. I love this movie. CPT Taylor was played by George Clooney, and his buddies were Marky Mark and Ice Cube).We require a trustworthy, upright and business minded individual (clearly, you have no idea who I am) for opening account in Europe and to receive this money for save keeping. Details will be sent upon signal of interest. Our contact email:etaylor@adlandpro.comThanks for your co-operationSigned,Capt. E. Taylor

See, that’s a story that is worth giving a dollar for if heard on the street. However, if your lovely wife hears that story, and is a member of an unnamed church, we’ll call the Gurch of Ghrist, so as not to single anyone out. Then it is a different story.

Bonnie Napier of ib2@comcast.net writes:The vulgarity of your comments about the death of Anna Nicole Smith’s son are reprehensible. Using sarcasm and not so witty commentary about the death of a young man –a grieving mother — definitely take the award for "Most Ignorant Fool:. Let’s hope you never experience the loss of a child, perhaps then others might get some humor out of your parenting and lifestyle choices.

Bonnie.

I was going to wait until the coroner’s report came out before commenting on that email. After all, who am I to criticize the mothering skills of someone whose kid died within her sight covered in blood and vomit? Too bad they weren’t in a hospital or anything, so he might have received medical attention. She certainly has her hands full with the making a buck off of her dead son. That’s probably why she has sequestered herself away from pesky people with questions regarding the kid’s death. She needs the time to grieve by rolling naked in a big pile of money.

As to my losing a child, yes that would be horrible. But, I’m pretty sure mixing prescription sleeping aids and anti-depressants isn’t an example I would set for my kids. See, when mom is a pill popping, vodka swilling train wreck, it isn’t a big shock when her kid thinks he can dodge that same bullet, is it?

I’m not completely heartless, Bonnie. Whenever I see a kid in a wheelchair it makes me a little sad. Because I always think, "Gee, they could have used those same wheels to make a bike for a regular kid." What a waste.

In a related story, after years of ripping off The Onion, they have struck back. Gina’s comment sounds so damn familiar.

2nd Autopsy For Anna Nicole’s Son

A second autopsy will be performed on Anna Nicole Smith’s 20-year-old son who died at her bedside while she was hospitalized in the Bahamas. What do you think?

One last bit about the Vegas Vacation. The flight home was marred by this Air Force guy who sat with us. Evidently, he and I were best friends in high school or something. This guy wouldn’t stop talking about himself, the classified nature of his work, the amount of travel he does annually, etc.

I didn’t bring the appropriate geegaws and thingamajigs with me to Vegas in order to post the photos which accompanied the narrative. Unlike the Pope, I’m not sorry. Though violence and the threat of violence may be endemic to at least one of the major world religions, neither violence nor religious edicts will compel these pictures to ever see the light of day.

Ok, that’s a lie. Here are the pics:

Much like the ancient capitals of Europe, the gods of antiquity are celebrated in statue form.

Why the artist chose to sculpt a likeness of this King out of hot fudge can only be speculated.

Despite the resumption of daily nuclear weapons testing, life in Las Vegas was largely unaffected.

Fortunately, the winds blew much of this fallout away from the tourist areas and towards the low-income neighborhoods and Indian reservations.

Acclaimed performer Barry Manilow (actual size) at the opening of his gift shop.

When not selling trinkets with his name or face plastered on every available space, Mr. Manilow headlines an allegedly incredible show at the Las Vegas Hilton.

In his spare time, Mr. Manilow enjoys undergoing plastic surgery and being the punchline in jokes about a 6 inch pianist.

The Promised Land, as viewed from my room.

Who says the Israelis are the only ones who can make the desert bloom?

Everyone knows that modern Vegas was created by Bugsy McSiegel and Moira Lansky, both were fine sons of Auld Sod.

If you have a Sunday School class struggling to get enough people to play UNO, you may have to resort to outside the box thinking in order to get butts in the seats. Declining attendance means declining tithes and offerings. And I think we all know what the consequences are of God not getting His full cut.

Kitty, you need to put this sign over the door of your Sunday School class. Nothing sells like fear.

In anticipation of our hour and a half delay and subsequent three hour flight yesterday, I bought a book to keep myself occupied. I had already brought a book for such an eventuality. Unfortunately, that book is Race and Cultureby Thomas Sowell. I’m interested in the topic and I like Sowell, so there shouldn’t be any problem, right? After the first couple of chapters, it reminds me of a P. J. O’Rourke quote about social science, "Folks do lots of things. We don’t know why. Test on Friday. "

Perhaps I’m not giving the book a fair shake, or maybe I am. I haven’t read enough of it to figure out which. It is one of those books that begs to be put down.

As Brooks acknowledges in the acknowledgements, the book is a mix between Studs Terkel’s The Good War, General Sir John Hackett The Third World War, and the films of George Romero. All three of which I encountered as a teenager and remember with delight.

The book walks the thin line between Swiftian satire and outright jabs at the current state of affairs around the globe. Between our government’s leviathan responses to disasters to the pathetic and unfortunate obsession with celebrities, no sacred cow is left uneaten.

I finally finished it around midnight. Brooks creates a comedically plausible world where the Israelis and Palestinians beat their swords into zombie killin’ swords instead of plowshares. Frankly, I can’t think of any other way for them to put aside their differences than a zombie plague. In many respects, the zombie war solves a lot of society’s woes by upsetting the apple cart and killing hundreds of millions of people. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

What I didn’t like was the reference to those who survived in zombie infested zones after being abandoned by the government as LaMoes. Pronounced with a long A. That’s short for Last Man On Earth types. That term is offensive to those of us who expect to be abandoned by the government in zombie infested areas.

So, stock up on food and ammo. And remember, always put one in their brains, kids.